Hillary Clinton has always wanted the White House for herself

President Clinton and
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton look at each other January 21
as they applaud a speaker at the winter meeting of the Democratic
National Committee.Stephen
Jaffe/Reuters

In this excerpt from Clinton, Inc: The Audacious Rebuilding Of A
Political Machine, Daniel Halper, a political writer and
online editor at The Weekly Standard,
compiles candid interviews with former Clinton administration
aides, friends, and enemies to reveal how this dynamic political
power couple positioned themselves for even greater success.

In 1988, when Bill first considered a run for the presidency, he
and Hillary had also considered the idea that she replace him as
governor of Arkansas. By the time of his first inaugural four
years later, the White House clearly was in her sights. This was
part of the understanding she always had with Bill Clinton.

He'd get his turn. She'd put up with his crap. And then she'd get
her chance. And he'd do what he could to help her.

President Bill Clinton
whispers to first lady Hillary Clinton during an event at the
White House in this February 5, 1999 file
photo.Reuters

Clinton aides told me they were astonished after Bill's
taking office, at a time when Mrs. Clinton was viewed by a
significant segment of the country as a shrill, polarizing
radical, that this idea was such an active notion in the
administration.

"Hillaryland was always, always, always a force," a senior
Clinton aide recalls in a wide-ranging interview for this book.
He worked within steps of the Oval Office during the
administration and, like pretty much everyone else who hopes to
have a career in Democratic politics, will speak only without
attribution.

"If you f---ed up and were found out by [Bill] Clinton, you
got a promotion. If you f---ed up and were found out by Hillary,
your throat was slit and you were left on the tarmac with no
ticket home. It was brutal."

U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton delivers remarks during a news conference at the
U.S. Consulate in Vladivostok, September 9,
2012.Jim
Watson/Reuters

In those early days, Clinton critics were demanding the release
of Hillary Clinton's records from her days as a partner at the
Rose Law Firm in Little Rock as part of the investigation of a
now largely forgotten early scandal known as Whitewater.

Mrs. Clinton was reluctant to release documents or to comply with
the requests of the special prosecutor in the case.

One aide approached the First Lady's press secretary, Lisa
Caputo, then in her midtwenties. "Why doesn't she just come
f---ing forward and release them? The president had no business
in the matter. It won't hurt him."

"We can't," Caputo replied. "Hillary's got her own
ambitions."

"What do you mean?" he asked. "It doesn't get better than
First Lady."

"Well, there's '04. Or '08."

It's always been known that Mrs. Clinton had political
ambitions, but never before had an aide confirmed with such
assurance that she was envisioning the presidency for herself,
even as her husband was just settling in.

Former U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton gives a speech at the 37th Harkin Steak Fry
in Indianola, Iowa September 14, 2014.Jim Young/Reuters

Hillary Clinton wanted the keys to the White House herself and,
as a former aide put it in an exclusive interview for this book,
conjuring images of the popular movie The Shawshank Redemption,
"She was willing to slog through all of [his] shit" to get there.

Hillary has been
"the one to always play a long game, and she started playing that
long game at the end of the second term, and I think she thought
the Senate would lead directly to her own presidency in 2008,"
another close observer of the Clintons tells me, again insisting
on anonymity.

As her husband's second term came to a close, the question was:
Where to start? She was born in Illinois, went to college in
Massachusetts, law school in Connecticut, had brief stints in
California and Washington D.C., and had moved to Arkansas to be
with her future husband, Bill Clinton.

Now she was back in Washington, D.C.—the nation's capital,
living in the White House.

Along the way Hillary had picked up friends and networks
across the country and even a pronounced southern accent that she
mysteriously lost shortly after she arrived in Washington in
1993.

In other words, she had no strong roots anywhere—which, she
believed, gave her license to represent people as an elected
official from ... just about
anywhere.